Football: St. Mary’s among teams moving divisions prior to 2024 season

BISMARCK, N.D. — High school football is back in North Dakota with a full slate of games this Friday across the state. But before we the action on the gridiron begins, it’s important to showcase some of the changes that were made ahead of the 2024 season.

One of the changes comes at the top in the AAA division with the removal of the Quality Ratings Formula. Instead of using power rankings to determine the playoff teams, it will now be the top four team from each conference, the WDA and EDC, who will advance to postseason play. After talking with some coaches here in Bismarck, it seems they are in favor of this change.

“I think that power rankings system needs to go and needs to be buried forever,” Bismarck High head coach Mark Gibson says. “You know, we were one of the teams that didn’t really benefit from it. The whole system was flawed from the get go.”

“We’ve got to get back to the way we had it before,” Century head coach Ron Wingenbach adds. “And that puts a lot of value on your conference games and a lot less value on some of the non-conference games, that being the Eastern teams. And I think both sides of the state are in favor of that.”

Looking at other changes across high school football, there has been some restructuring of the divisions. Starting at the top with Class AAA. On the east side, reigning AA champions, Fargo North, is making the leap to AAA.

In the AA Class, the St. Mary’s Saints are moving down after two seasons in AAA. The west region is also adding two teams, one being Minot North who is playing the inaugural season at the varsity level, and Valley City, who is moving from the east region to bring balance across the entire Class.

Lastly in Class A, Turtle Mountain moves down after competing at the AA level since 1997.

After talking with St. Mary’s, they not only emphasized their excitement to play a new slate of opponents, but their focus on taking every opponent seriously, and knowing that just because they played at the highest division doesn’t mean they’re going to have an easy path.

“The last time we did this, you know, was sometime in the nineties,” head coach toby Schweitzer says. “And our biggest chore is to make sure that these kids understand that it’s a great league. Last time we went down, we didn’t dominate by any means. It was a lot of work to get back to where we needed to be.”

“That’s everybody’s mindset right now,” wide receiver Aeyden Price adds. “Obviously, I don’t think anybody is expecting to just win every single game super easily or whatever. We’re all taking all the teams very seriously and like Red River right away, that’s a first very good opponent. So, we’ve got to get our mindset for that and just keep working hard and see where it goes.”

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